Spring Break
A Panel Discussion on
Call-Centers and Back-Office Outsourcing
Maria Wich-Vila (NE), Special Contributor
Issue date: 4/5/04 Section: News
The Global Outsourcing Club invited a number of distinguished speakers to participate on a panel on current trends in international outsourcing. Led by Professor John Wells, the panelists spoke about their past experiences and future expectations for the industry.
The first speaker was Ashok Dutt, the EVP of Marketing for Discover Financial Services, who shared the challenges he faced in establishing the first credit card system in India. His colleagues in the U.S. were initially very dubious that credit cards would be viable in a country with no credit-bureau infrastructure. However, by going to a small software provider, Dutt and his team were able to create and launch an entire platform in six months that supported one to two million cards. They also established a door-to-door sales force - an idea that his colleagues initially dismissed as "crazy", but that yielded Discover 70% of new card sign-ups.
Mr. Dutt emphasized that the ability to localize is key to successful outsourcing. For example, he once set up a call center in Mexico, which was meant to service all of Latin America. However, his team hadn't anticipated that some words in Mexican Spanish are quite different from those in Puerto Rican Spanish. Also, Puerto Rican customers would occasionally speak to customer service representatives with an aggressive tone - a practice which was acceptable in Puerto Rico, but which flustered call center workers in Mexico.
Other similar cultural nuances made the call center a failure, and they had to re-open call centers in Puerto Rico and other countries around the region that appealed to local accents and cultures. This was an example of a market that was too highly fragmented to benefit from a consolidated call center proving that, in some cases, customer service functions may benefit from being localized.
Dutt's final words of advice were that companies pursue a partnership with the organizations they outsource to and for everything to work, companies should be "joined at the hip" with their outsourcers, instead of the more common "black box" approach. Dutt warned that results may not be optimal if you "just send off a set of specifications" and hope for the best.
The first speaker was Ashok Dutt, the EVP of Marketing for Discover Financial Services, who shared the challenges he faced in establishing the first credit card system in India. His colleagues in the U.S. were initially very dubious that credit cards would be viable in a country with no credit-bureau infrastructure. However, by going to a small software provider, Dutt and his team were able to create and launch an entire platform in six months that supported one to two million cards. They also established a door-to-door sales force - an idea that his colleagues initially dismissed as "crazy", but that yielded Discover 70% of new card sign-ups.
Mr. Dutt emphasized that the ability to localize is key to successful outsourcing. For example, he once set up a call center in Mexico, which was meant to service all of Latin America. However, his team hadn't anticipated that some words in Mexican Spanish are quite different from those in Puerto Rican Spanish. Also, Puerto Rican customers would occasionally speak to customer service representatives with an aggressive tone - a practice which was acceptable in Puerto Rico, but which flustered call center workers in Mexico.
Other similar cultural nuances made the call center a failure, and they had to re-open call centers in Puerto Rico and other countries around the region that appealed to local accents and cultures. This was an example of a market that was too highly fragmented to benefit from a consolidated call center proving that, in some cases, customer service functions may benefit from being localized.
Dutt's final words of advice were that companies pursue a partnership with the organizations they outsource to and for everything to work, companies should be "joined at the hip" with their outsourcers, instead of the more common "black box" approach. Dutt warned that results may not be optimal if you "just send off a set of specifications" and hope for the best.
